September 18, 2007

A minute or so into what became a combative diatribe, [Andrew] Meyer's microphone was turned off and officers began trying to physically remove him from the auditorium. Meyer flailed his arms, yelling as police tried to restrain him.

He was then pushed to the ground by six officers, at which point Meyer yelled, "What have I done? What I have I done? Get away from me. Get off of me! What did I do? ... Help me! Help."

Police threatened to user a Taser on Meyer if he did not "comply," but he continued to resist being handcuffed. He was then Tased, which prompted him to scream and writhe in pain on the floor of the auditorium.

ADDED: To my eye, Meyer is acting like a Yippie of old. I wonder how that made John Kerry feel. Why didn't he intervene in some creative way? Who's fighting and what for? What most distinguishes this incident from a Vietnam era scene is that the young people don't turn on the police and chant "pigs!"

1: We don't know how long he was talking. He may have been going on for quite some time. On the other hand, it looks like they jumped on him as soon as he started on his second question.

2: If you wrestle with the cops, they're going to win. Just because you're a spoiled white boy university student doesn't mean you can fight with police officers. Even if they're fascist pigs who are stomping all over freedom. Tasing him was a victory against white skin privilege.

3: YouTube shows how ridiculous the actions were of all parties involved, except the audience which (quite properly) sat passively. The cops overreacted, the student was physically violent, and you can hear John Kerry talking in the background during the scuffle, like a total douche bag.

This was on the news first thing this AM. I should point out that as with the post yesterday about Sally Field's remarks being truncated in the transcription, comparing the full video (which this isn't) to the story, they missed a bit. First he was asked to leave the microphone. He declined and shortly thereafter was told to step away. This is the point at which the video in the post starts, which is why you see the cops right there behind him.

Me, I see a student who wanted attention, who wanted to make a spectacle of himself, who succeeded.

If what that emailer to Malkin wrote is true about the totality of the guy's actions, I think this is a very different incident than the one in the UCLA library.

Also, it does not appear that Senator Kerry is the one who ordered the guy's removal, but Kerry did try to calm things down and (presumably) keep the auditorium from exploding into a very bad situation. But that's cool how your reader calls him a "douche bag" for doing that.

Lisa, Lisa, I didn't call John Kerry a douche bag, and certainly not for trying to defuse the situation.

I said he sounded "like a douche bag" for talking in his usual boring monotone while the student was wrestling with the cops. Like he's just going to ignore it and the audience is going to forget about the crazy guy actively resisting the police.

That's not very realistic. It may be serene, but it's not presidential.

Ah, this coming after yesterday's video of the college girl shouting "f*ck this sh*t" at Brother Jed...

O tempera! O mores!

Kerry doesn't seem to help matters by continuing to talk in the background, particularly by making comments about his losing the election. Shouldn't he have told the student to calm down and go with the police.

I can't help but also wonder if he shouldn't have left the stage, as the student's "hysterics" could have been a diversion for some sort of violent terrorist act.

Also interesting that all of the other students reacted passively. None moved away or left. Considering that the boy may have been armed or the struggle could have spilled over into the seats, I would have moved away had I been sitting nearby.

It seems to me the police over-reacted. The guy would have been shouted down if he had made a nuisence of himself. Unless there is something missing at the beginning of the video, I don't understand why he was arrested.

Daryl, you don't seem to understand that where you hear a "boring monotone," others do not. It's fine if you don't like Senator Kerry, but that doesn't convert him into being unlikable for everyone else.

Also, you first say you weren't calling him names because he tried to defuse the situation, but then you say he did not sound presidential while trying to defuse the situation. This is, um, how shall I say it? Ridiculous.

On another note, too bad he didn't heed the advice of the ACLU's bust card www.aclu.org/police/gen/14528res20040730.html

The police never should have been involved. However, once this scene started going down, I would have respected Kerry a lot more if he had told the police to let him speak and perhaps even approached the fray. Instead, he drones on like as people have already commented on. That just makes him look clueless.

Of course, the kids biggest mistake was mentioning Skull and Bones. At that point, the police had no choice but to follow the secret orders of the brotherhood and remove this troublemaker.

The video that Prof. Althouse posted is for many, like so many other things in the last several years, a Rohrshach test. Look at the comments over at Malkin's site. The initial reaction is that it is liberals suppressing speech then, when it becomes clear that the speaker is a moonbat who is further left than Kerry, the trend goes toward "he got what he deserved."

Lisa, please. You seem incapable of distinguishing between Kerry's intervention to allow the nutjob to ask some questions (good) and Kerry's talking while the guy was bouncing around the room like it had rubber walls (lame).

For the record, he has a monotone. Do we need to rig some scientific equipment in order to demonstrate that Kerry fails to modulate his voice to the same degree as normal humans? Now that they've managed to prove that Global Warming is Definitely 100% Real, you'd think scientists would have some free time to do some useful research.

Disclaimer: We haven't seen what happened before the start of the posted video, so we haven't seen the circumstances.

When I watched the video, it was very disturbing how precisely it paralleled my mother's behavior. She's a paranoid schizophrenic (tin-foil hat variety). She believes that her age spots - and every other headache, soreness forgetfulness, etc. that she experiences - are caused by a mastermind criminal organization using EM radiation. She also thinks Bush is the "King" of the criminals, and is in conspiracy with black and asians.

Since she hasn't proven herself to be an immediate violent threat to herself or others (and of course she won't trust a doctor to treat her), there's no way we can legally help her. The only time we tried, we were able to get her involuntarily committed to a state hospital for a two-week "evaluation" period. Result? According to her (the hospital won't give us any info on her whatsoever - I had to fight to get them to admit she was even there so I could visit her), she has "anger management" issues, and they recommended she take anger classes (which of course she did not).

When she was arrested by the cops to go to the hospital, it was eerily similar to the pattern I just saw here. When the officers entered, she began with a pseudo-political rant. When she refused to go with the officers voluntarily, they took her by the arms the same way, and she started yelling almost identical protests, and struggling to get free. She tried to make a point of being as loud as she could, as though she had an audience (we were in her house), and trying to throw her hands in the air.

Then, as they started to take her away, she repeatedly shouted for help and demanded to know what she had done. She also kept telling the officers throughout to let go of her, that they were "violating civil rights", as though it were some secret code phrase that would free her.

Once she was close to the police car, she panicked and started to cry. This was the worst part for me, because she kept asking me to help her. Even knowing that this was the only way to help, and that I knew where they were taking her, seeing crying and begging me for help almost made me crack. For a second I was seriously considering going to her and trying to fight them off.

I don't have any other experience of mentally ill people or even of typical rational protester behavior. But watching this video was like deja vu for one of the worst moments in my life.

Too many jims said..."The initial reaction is that it is liberals suppressing speech then, when it becomes clear that the speaker is a moonbat who is further left than Kerry, the trend goes toward 'he got what he deserved.'"

Unless any of the Malkinites expressly changed their mind, this statement amounts to "people had different opinions."

I don't think there's anything Kerry could've said or done to satisfy you all. And frankly, why should he have to say or do anything? True, the guy has the charisma of an enema bag, but why are people dragging him into it? All of this was brought on by a college student high on Mountain Dew and Taco Bell.

It's the (rental?)cops who didn't react properly. What is it with cops and tasing videos and lame college kids? It's clear that tasers are more trouble than they're worth as every one who gets tased just becomes more of a shrieking idiot and the cops look like pricks. Why not just use a stun gun and knock 'em out? Or better yet, why not just bonk 'em over the head with a metal pipe or a piece of wood...it'd work better plus it would look kind of funny in a slapstick kind of way and make the cops seem kind of endearing and cute.

I'm interested in the commenters who think the cops overreacted. The guy tried to take the event over, and when the cops stopped him from doing so he resisted and continued to do so even with six cops (it looks like) trying to subdue him. What were they supposed to do?

When the cops intitially grab the guy, the crowd noise sounds a lot like a cheer to me.

The tape is also a perfect illustration of why you need big males as cops. 2 big men could have handcuffed him and escorted him out in no time. Instead it took 5 of them, including the little police-ette, and minutes of wrestling and possibly a taser.

Here is a MUCH better video, that shows what happened from the very beginning. Now I'm not so sure that the kid deserved it, even though he acted like a jerk (there are more civil ways to get your point across).

Why are the cops already hanging around him before he even speaks...and I don't think he was trying to incite a riot...he was just too animated.

The tape is also a perfect illustration of why you need big males as cops. 2 big men could have handcuffed him and escorted him out in no time.

While I agree with you, I think the pictures and sound don't bear you out.

The Police-ette is hovering around true, but there is a BIG Black cop hovering as well. You can here the perp plead, "Bro, don't Taser me please". sounds like they were mal-assigned. The big black guy should have been kneeling on his chest and the white gal should have been waving the Taser and doing that "conflict avoidance" stuff that feminists put forward as the key to affirmative feminsit policing :)

Holy moly Batman! Who has a time machine that can transport us to the future for a video of the Althouse commenter gathering that hasn't even happened yet? That’s spooky (P.S. that is not meant as a racial epithet)!

Simon said... Unless any of the Malkinites expressly changed their mind, this statement amounts to "people had different opinions."

I agree that it could amount to "people had different opinions". That is why I talked about the trend.

It would be extraordinarily difficult to show that one person changed their position because (1) people don't like to admit they change their position, (2) people don't like to publish the fact that they changed their position and (3) one could probably change the name they post under.

That said if you look at the comments of 29Victor over there you will see that he posts twice before Malkin's update at 12:15 a.m. In the first he describes the speaker as a nut but asks "what right did they have to lay hands on him for speaking at an OPEN MIKE in the first place?" In the second his point was "Bottom line: Student’s free speech was denied and you don’t seem to care as long as no one 'got hurt.'"

He posted one time after Malkin updated. Here is a quote from that comment: "Hey! This kind of thing is only funny until some guy gets tasered.

…and then it’s really, really funny.

For me, in this, there really is no downside. In this fight, no dog do I have."

I'll readily admit that I could be missing somethig in 29Victor's series of posts. He could be being sarcastic with his last post. He may have history of back and forth with posters there that I am not familiar with. But standing alone his posts seem to say before he knows whod the speaker is: This is serious. After the speaker: This is a joke.(As an aside, before my initial comment I went to Kos. My premise was that Kossacks (or whatever they are called) would be joyous over the guy being tased when they thought he was a right wing nutjob but horrified when they learned he was one of theirs. Unfortunately, the only stories/diaries I could find identified his ideology from the beginning.)

I am wondering if any of you have felt that the police have become overbearing and physical in the last decade. They seem much more inclined to have individuals on the ground and handcuffed and in no way try to use courtesy and a more gentle aspect to their confrontations. This is only one example shown here but you see it repeated daily in real life and via the new. Even shows like "Cops" clearly show extremely aggressive behavior.

The excuse is that they need to protect themselves. But this kid was not hurting anyone and not threatening violence. The cops started that with their aggressive behavior. The kid was clearly nuts but I am confronted with similar situations and never throw someone on the ground.

It also seems that cops are entering more into our daily lives. It is if you can not avoid them watching your actions and ever ready with the ticket book. Certainly they are going to claim that our world has changed and that they are constantly on the vigil for terrorist. But that is getting old and it is time for that "crisis" to pass.

1: For the record, Tasing someone while they are on the ground, even if they are squirming/resisting, is improper. Tasers should only be used to control a bad situation, not to inflict pain to get compliance.

2: The reason the comments changed at Malkin's site is that additional context appeared. It's not that people suddenly learned he was a troofer. It's because they learned he had already asked several questions after cutting in line by charging the mic, and wouldn't shut up. At some point, he has to stop.

The fact that no one else in the audience even seems to acknowledge this guy's predicament makes we wonder how well he and his antics are known on campus. How many people were rolling their eyes saying "Oh god, HIM again....will he never shut up?"

I was impressed that the black cop was able to move the guy so easily. If they'd had a cop at the back door ready to open it, I wonder how this would have evolved? It just seemed like Mr. Student Protester wanted to stay in the auditorium with his audience. That there wasn't someone there to open the door to throw him speaks of incomplete training on the part of the police, IMO Shouldn't they want to be able to clear, efficiently, the auditorium of troublemakers?

And I completely agree with zps: People still think Kerry has something relevant to say? The mind boggles.

(2007-09-18) — Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, said today that a University of Florida student who was Tasered after cursing police while resisting arrest during a Kerry speech is “seared…seared in my memory.”

Florida student Andrew Meyer, 21, drew police attention during a Q&A session by vigorously filibustering Sen. Kerry, verbally attacking him for his failure to contest the 2004 presidential election results, his failure to yank funding from the U.S. military in Iraq, and his failure to impeach President George Bush, who is reportedly Mr. Kerry’s Skull & Bones fraternity brother.

Sen. Kerry attempted to answer what he called the “very important question”, but his calm, measured words were drowned out by the screaming of the newly-energized Mr. Meyer.

Later, the professional Vietnam veteran expressed concern that the student’s freedom of speech had been squelched in “a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan…that is, if Mr. Khan had been able to buy a high-voltage stun gun.”

What is the alternative? Leave the guy at the microphone while everyone else goes someplace else to finish the event?

Maybe he didn't need to be tased but the idea that he could have been removed without forcibly removing him by, you know, force, is unrealistic.

According to what people said, he was asked to leave the microphone a couple of times. His turn was over. If someone doesn't leave when asked and doesn't comply when someone shows up in uniform they simply aren't going to.

And if the guy wasn't right in the head?

This reminds me of a video clip of Buzz Aldrin being confronted by a conspiracy nut who was verbally abusive and ignored Buzz's demands that he back off. It was like he had no clue at all that he wasn't entitled to be abusive without consequence and I have no doubt that when Buzz clocked the guy (clearly self-defense, IMO, and Buzz wasn't charged for punching him) that he was surprised and confused that he was attacked for no reason.

When people who make a scene on purpose get arrested they get hauled off more or less quietly. Someone takes Mother Sheehan's arms and another cop takes her legs and they carry her off.

I saw another clip of someone who was removed from a political event. I can't remember who the political guy was and she wasn't thrown down or anything (but she was a rather small woman.) She wasn't being totally obnoxious just obnoxious and was asked to leave quite politely, she refused, and when she was made to leave physically she *cried* don't touch me don't touch me what have I done what have I done! She sounded panicked and distressed.

A *rational* person knows what they have done, *knows* they have a limited amount of time before they will be ejected, and makes the best of it while it lasts.

What precedes the video might explain why he was already surrounded by police when the video starts, and might explain his forcible ejection.

It's hard to imagine what could precede the video that would justify the extra pain inflicted on him after he was wrestled to the ground by 5 police.

He was subdued, he was not a threat to anyone, he was in fact pleading for mercy. He offered to walk out peacefully. Still he was cruelly shocked. It was for no public good.

My dad was a cop. Being a cop is tough, underpaid, under-respected job. But when that frustration boils over to the point where you hurt people when it's not necessary, especially harmless people begging for mercy, you should not be permitted the responsibility of law enforcement.

No real damage was done here, but you can't give this the thumbs up and then scratch your head over the more serious brutality that happens when nobody's looking.

Roost on the Moon - to be brutally honest, after several years of being called evil, deranged, traitorous and so forth by people like this guy, I'm finding it pretty difficult to dredge up any sympathy when they get taken down a peg. Now, I'm making assumptions about him, of course; we don't know that he's a kossack or what have you, but it seems a safe bet from his little speech and persecution complex. Sorry, I just don't care.

The mistake the officers made was not being aggressive enough at the beginning. They should have taken the kid down and cuffed him, not weakly grabbed his arms and then allowing him to break free and run around the place like a scared little girl.

Had they done so the taser would have not been needed and they could have gotten him out more quickly.

That being said, if MY son ever acted this way I would kick his ass TWICE - once for not listening to the cops when they first asked him to leave and again for crying like a little girl when they took him into custody. I mean, come on, the taser stings like hell, but I have seen first graders that faked being hurt better than this guy. What a momma's boy - maybe Sally Field can nurse him back to health.

Could you imagine living in Gainesville Florida-wow-that must be depressing.

I don't have to imagine it, I did it. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed living there a lot. For example, in Gainesville we got more in the way of independent and foreign films than anywhere else I have ever lived, including Baltimore, Oralando, and Washington DC.

Like lots of college towns, especially the ones that have the big state schools, it combines a lot of the best of living in a small town (less crowding, less traffic, less people related crap in general) with a nice cosmopolitan feel. There's a fair amount of culture going on most of the time in terms of music, movies, little resteraunts and shops, the usual campus traditions (although they've killed Burrito Brothers! Bastards!), etc. I'd love to move back there someday.

Simon, regardless of your feeling that the kid is an over-dramatic little shit, (and don't think I don't know the type myself), giving the officers in question a free ride on sadistic behavior seems like a bad idea for everyone. Police included.

I'm choosing to believe that this merely reflects the attitude of journalists today.

"I'm going to inform people and then ask my question."

Do you see how backward that is? He isn't a reporter looking for info, he is out to proselytize. And wouldn't a campus journalist automatically get a few minutes with Kerry? Why did this guy jump line when informed that Kerry would only take a couple more questions and then proceed to "inform people?" He wasn't participating in an open forum. He was trying to force the remaking of someone else's forum into his own agenda. His Momma didn't raise him right.

Could this have been merely theatre? I notice that his language is rated "G," making it much more likely to be broadcast widely. Wouldn't we normally expect gratuitous vulgarities in someone this immature?

Roost on the Moon said..."Simon, regardless of your feeling that the kid is an over-dramatic little shit, (and don't think I don't know the type myself), giving the officers in question a free ride on sadistic behavior seems like a bad idea for everyone."

That's a red herring - true but beside the point - unless one grants that the cops acted sadistically, and I don't see the video showing that.

I am wondering if any of you have felt that the police have become overbearing and physical in the last decade. They seem much more inclined to have individuals on the ground and handcuffed and in no way try to use courtesy and a more gentle aspect to their confrontations.

'Cuz using attack dogs, billy clubs, and firehoses to break up protests like they did back in the day is so much more respectful.

Kerry was only following SOP for such instances. This one happened to end up more violent then most, but that is no reflection on Kerry, or his actions, which seemed to me to be appropriate, he not having, after all, the benefit of clairvoyance (or hindsight).

Roost on the Moon, as the video clearly shows, he had already been given many, many opportunities to comply, and at each turn had resisted further. The police had no reason to believe based on his behavior thusfar that he was going to comply.

On some level I realize it's wrong to react this way, but after a month when the left have evidently decided that they have no use for the norms of civilized behavior - if they want to run full-page ads accusing generals and presidents of treason - I have very little interest in standing up for their rights, a fortiori when - as here - the "incident" was provoked entirely by his own behavior.

I think the cops could have handled it a bit better, or at least differently, but as we say in the Army: Tactics is the "opinion" of the senior man present.

we're second guessing the cops without knowing what their SOP is and whether they complied. I saw no billy club swings and since the 20 y/o is not a big candidate for a heart attack and didn't have one, I don't see a huge issue with tasing.

I would have used more than 2 cops at the start though. I thought the big black guy looked like an NFL defensive lineman working over a tight end. He should have kept the perp moving right out the door, or through the door.

I just rewatched the video and liked the female cop wagging her finger at him, gonna get a lot of compliance that way from your average felon :)

I should add that if this had happened to a pro-life heckler who'd been harranguing Kerry, I'll bet real money this kid would have been sitting there cheering on the cops. So you tell me why we should feel sorry for him, Roost. They have nothing but contempt for Republicans, so why on Earth should we be concerned about injuries they sustain in the line of moonbattery?

Overall, I think if someone starts acting crazy in the general vicinity of a current or recent candidate for president, extra vigilance is called for. If the police owe the kid an apology and a few bucks for overreacting, there's plenty of time for that later.

The potshots taken at Ford, the murder of John Lennon and the near-murder of Ronald Reagan were all the work of insane people, for whom we can have compassion, but not until we have them under some measure of control.

I am wondering if any of you have felt that the police have become overbearing and physical in the last decade. They seem much more inclined to have individuals on the ground and handcuffed and in no way try to use courtesy and a more gentle aspect to their confrontations.

Well the flipside to this is that people are more inclined to initiate a confrontation, even with a cop. If you are asked by the forum moderator to stop speaking and relinquish the mic, do it. Don’t be a pretentious ass-hat and then start arguing with the guy with the badge and gun. Courtesy ends when you start getting in my face. I’ll ask nice once, after that, an ass whooping is inevitable. If you’re asked to leave and refuse to leave, a physical escort will result. If you resist, you will be cuffed. Why is that so damn hard to understand?

The problem to me is less with the police and more with idiots like this guy who think they have a God-given right to do what they want anywhere they want. Spend a day doing crowd control at some event and I guarantee you will want to start tazzering people within 20 minutes.

Well, for one thing, a Taser and a stun gun are essentially the same thing; the Taser just works at range, while a stun gun works by touch (ie, the stun gun doesn't fire darts to send the electrical charge through the target, but has fixed contacts on the device itself).

But stun guns, like tasers, don't "knock out" their target, and they're about equally effective/ineffective.

The entire point of a taser, for police use, is that you don't have to be touching the person who's physically misbehaving enough to be tasered, in order to use it on him.

After reading some of the more complete descriptions of the event at Michelle Malkin, JFKerry showed at least a reckless disregard for what might happen after he countermanded the security detail and the UF officials in charge of the event. Kerry might have diffused the situation if he had declined to continue to answer questions from the floor and offered to speak with Meyer and the other students one-on-one. Rewarding Meyer's initial outburst by giving him the microphone implicitly turned over control of the event to Meyer and almost guaranteed that the effort required to regain control would be that much greater.

Normally I'd be on the side of the wrongly arrested...but this was so preventable, so ridiculous, I hope he has to serve some outrageous sentence like 2 years or something. Or, 3 months but his cell mate has to be O.J.

On 9/12/2001, I went to memorial ceremony in the library mall at UW-Madison. The grief was overwhelming, quiet, and cathartic. The proceedings were interrupted by the same (I think) religious nutters featured in yesterday's video. They marched 20ft tall banners featuring aborted fetuses and anti-everyone slogans across the field and screamed invective at the stunned crowd. They were arrested.

If they had been physically harmed that day, I believe I would have felt a giddy thrill of "justice".

If one was pinned to the ground and crying out in panic for mercy, and a police officer tasered him, I'm sure I would have had thoughts along the lines of "that's what you get" and "that anti-human monster had it coming".

I know I would've been more comfortable had violence come from an angry citizen, in violation of the law, than an official representative of the state.

Our relationship to these feelings is a personal/spiritual matter. Whether we conclude that they are righteous or otherwise, we shouldn't let them stop us from recognizing real red flags. If it becomes a-ok for police to shock people after they are no longer a threat, we're going to see much more disrespect, distrust, and outright hatred of the police from the public.

Whatever you the feel the left has done to you and our country, we all have an interest in strongly discouraging unnecessary violence from the police.

The last time I saw a bum’s rush like this was last Tuesday night when a drunken hipster at the bar at Sur on Smith St. asked for a tasty little Macaquito instead of a tasty little Mohijito (P.S. this is not meant as an Argentinean racial epithet),

Yet another reason why tasers are useless. The student became even more violent after getting shocked.

By the way, all speaker systems in big auditoriums have switches that can turn off any and all microphones. I know that doesn't involve the tasering/tackling that makes the authoritarians go wild, but think how much better/boring the situation could have turned out.

From the comments and reaction here I guess we can see who was alive and on campus in the 60s and early 70s and who wasn't....

and by the way the kid would never have made it into a Bush rally or Q&A because he was probably the wrong party...remember???? bush didn't allow attendees from the "wrong" stripe let alone off the cuff questions.

Roost - again, true if one grants that the police used "unnecessary violence." But I'm not generally in the business of second-guessing the cops on the ground. If they felt that this level of force was needed, then absent any kind of reason to think otherwise, anything to infer impropriety from - if the kid was black, for example - then I think we ought to defer to them.

I'm not generally in the business of second-guessing the police either. If I were working from the police report, I'm sure I'd agree with you. But "nothing to infer from"? The entire incident is on tape. The perp is clearly terrified, unarmed, outnumbered and being held on the ground. He begs for mercy. Then they shock him.

The police should be given the benefit of the doubt, but the situation looks pretty clear.

First of all, this moron had his mic turned off an then asked to step away. He didn't. Probable cause took over at that point. Most people don't know, but once a police officer lays a finger on your body, you are considered to be in custody at that point. Then when this fool broke away from the cops, he elevated his cause to resisting arrest and other offenses. What gets me is that when he was warned repeatedly to stop resisting and or he would be tazed, he kept it up and got tazed, then some idiot out in the crowd starts yelling for them to stop tazing him because he didn't deserve it.

Actually, I'm quite shocked at the passivity of that particular audience. Unlike the UCLA library incident, this one was downright solemn. Frankly, if you are as uproarious as this spoiled, tin-foil hat, frat boy was, then expect the same treatment.

However, most people would ask the question as to why the police were there to begin with. Does a US Senator really require a police presence? Just asking.

So it would seem. Unfortunately, jaut about anyone who speaks in public seems to need them around these days. Wondering about your question, though. We saw the same video. Did he strike you as a stable individual whose response was appropriate? Were you not struck by numbers of trained professionals necessary to subdue him?

The alternative you suggest sans cops - would be to let a preening narcissist asshole and drama queen jump the line of waiting questioners, seize the mike, and take over the event.

However, once this scene started going down, I would have respected Kerry a lot more if he had told the police to let him speak and perhaps even approached the fray.

We live in an age when certain people feel an unlimited sense of entitlement to others limited time. Kerry's schedule allowed 25 minutes for students to ask questions. Indulge the little prick? Tell the students there to see Kerry, not Andrew Meyer, that Meyer's misbehavior should be rewarded and they instead should sit down, shut up, and let their time be seized by Meyer for his self-promotion?I once got into a debate about Cindy Sheehan's demand for hour's of Bush's time as her due by noting that if everyone on America was entitled to a minute of a President's time [300 million/1 minute] it would take 570 years for Bush to comply. Or, put another way, if all Federally funded cancer researchers were required to attend cancer victims funerals and "console surviving family members and answer all their questions", all cancer research would have to be abandoned, they would only be able to cover 1/7th the funerals and "family meetings to serve the New Cult of Victimhood Entitlement"

Instead, he drones on like as people have already commented on. That just makes him look clueless.

No, like Kerry or not, he was playing Senator Foghorn to students who happen to like Senator Foghorn and wanted to learn his views. His talking over the asshole and the assholes screams as he was tasered and student cheers the cops were dealing with the asshole were Kerry's attempt not to let Meyer dominate the event and to continue to address the audience that WAS listening to JFK, Jr. All public event speakers are coached to try talking over hecklers, if possible..

Of course, the kids biggest mistake was mentioning Skull and Bones. At that point, the police had no choice but to follow the secret orders of the brotherhood and remove this troublemaker.

Truth was Meyer had the mic cut as soon as he began screaming "blowjobs, blowjobs"....before he shifted his rant to skull&bones and the other hoary Lefty conspiracy items. He got one "blowjob" amplified, by listening to video, then the mic was cut.

My own opinion is that we have had over-indulgent University Administrations that have let narcissistic little pricks engage in Marcuse Commie "politics of confrontation and shoutdown of unacceptable thought" way too long.

IMO, Meyer should be sitting down with a Dean explaining he is suspended for two weeks, and banned from all U of Florida sponsored events for a year and will be expelled if he disobeys.

And, IMO, besides Tasering, any student following the rules and standing in the "question line" ought to get a rattaan whip like Asian cops use that don't stove skulls in like USA billy clubs do, but accomplish instant compliance - free to whack any line jumper or mic hog.

And Drill SGT does refresh memory that German cops are no Euroweenies...They give one polite warning, next thing a drunk is whacked in the leg with a collapsable baton, starts going down, is pile-driven the rest of the way by at least two Bundies , trussed up like a goose, and dragged off with a few fist grabs of hair or ears in under 5 seconds.

The video is awesome. I didn't know there were still Yippies around. He was clearly provoking the police to get a reaction from the audience. It's too bad there aren't many like him anymore. Where's Abbie Hoffman when you need him?

"What have I done? What I have I done? Get away from me. Get off of me! What did I do? ... Help me! Help." Drudge has reported that there was a terrible mix-up in his initial reporting. The video that was posted was actually Andrew Sullivan's wedding night video (P.S. This was not meant to be mocking gay marriage, however it is meant to mock Andrew Sullivan).

"I once got into a debate about Cindy Sheehan's demand for hour's of Bush's time as her due by noting that if everyone on America was entitled to a minute of a President's time [300 million/1 minute] it would take 570 years for Bush to comply."

I'd agree with you there. However, I question your comparison of requesting private time with the President with speaking too long at a speech and question/answer forum.

And if you didn't catch that my Skull and Bones reference was a joke, well...

Look right at the beginning of the video, you will see the guy in the suit with the cops giving the usual neck slashing sign for cut it off. One of the more interesting questions to me is who is that guy and who made the decision to have him removed from the mic. Was it the Kerry group or the event organizers and what was the reasoning. (Decision point one.)To me it looked like if the kid would have even been allowed to stay if he would have just sat down and shut up. (Decision point two.) After he started yelling and struggling with the cops it was all his call as to how he was treated. He could have had a quiet escort to the door. (Decision point three). Struggle more, yell more, dig your hole deeper until your on the floor resisting the handcuffs. At this point you are resisting arrest, all a result of your own actions. At this point the cops job changes from walking you to the door to safely subduing you and taking you in. Your going to get tasered until you're cuffed and can be safely removed. I am amazed at the fevered stupidity of this idiot. There is more video of this after the cops got him downstairs. They were standing there in the lobby telling him to calm down and trying to talk with him but he just kept yelling paranoid stuff about people knowing where he was asking passersby to let people know what was happening to him as it the cops were going to disappear him forever. At this point one might conclude that you have someone with a mental disorder which would go a long way to explaining such a poor series of decisions from start to finish.

If you examine the video closely, as I have, you'll clearly see a man with an umbrella in the upper right hand corner of the frame. He opens and closes the umbrella from second :14 to second :23. This is clearly a signal.

And if you listen closely from seconds :35 to :45, you can hear, very faintly, the words "Raspberry jam" whispered.

I suppose you've got an incontrovertible point, there. But it's worth asking yourself then, as a thought experiment, how much harm to an unarmed, terrified, and pleading perp would need to be evident before you might question the inflicting officer's judgement.

Umm, no. There is no way you can tell whether he is armed or not. If you think you can tell that, you need to learn a little (OK, a lot) more about weapons in general, and guns in particular. This is easily the most dangerously ignorant remark I've seen is this thread. It's not possible to know whether someone is armed until they have been subdued and thoroughly searched.

How do you know all this until you have a chance to restrain and search this guy. Plus he didn't start with the pleading until after he started resisting. You don't get a do over at that point and get to dictate the terms at which you will leave.

"Raspberry jam"?????Uh, I didnt know that was on there. It means nothing. Uh, I have to go now. I was never here, no one ever saw me.

And he's clearly NOT terrified. Angry, ranting, deranged, perhaps, but not terrified.

If you look at one of the other videos showing what happened after the cops took him out of the room, you hear him profess a belief that the cops "can't kill me" because people know he's in their custody. He also expresses a belief that the cops are turning him over to "the government." In other words, he really believes that cops might kill someone like him for disrupting a political speech. The police were entirely justified in assuming that he might, in perceived "self-defense," attack them immediately upon being let up.

The pinhead got less than he deserved, and the officers were quite professional for campus police. They had obviously been told to go easy on protesters and to avoid injuring anyone. They did their darndest to NOT escalate the incident while still doing their unpleasant duty of removing the line-jumping tin-foil-beanie psychotic, but pinhead persistently refused to do things the easy way.

From other-angle videos it's quite apparent that he continued violently resisting being cuffed right up until he was tased. That does tend to take the fight right out of someone.

Had they had to force him into cuffs without the tasing odds are good he would have had some reasonably painful and serious injuries, like a broken arm or dislocated shoulder. In the old days he'd have also been covered with billy-club bruises. In a crowd like that pepper spray use is discouraged for obvious reasons.

"If the police were concerned about a weapon, their guns would've been out, no? I'd assumed there was a security check. It doesn't seem like the most dangerously ignorant thing ever to assume that."

Uh, no. The guns don't come out until there is a immediate danger. Keep in mind this is indoors and full of students. However, you never assume that since the guy isn't waving a gun around, he doesn't have one. However, treating him as though he is disarmed before securing him and searching him is what gets a lot of cops killed. Keep in mind, real world is not like it is on tv.

You see and unarmed, terrified, pleading perp. Look again and read some of the first hand descriptions of the incident that have been linked. I think that what you see here is a paranoid, mentally unstable individual that is also a complete ass. Given the irrational mental state demonstrated by the perp, the cops need to get him safely under control as soon as possible. In my opinion they should have been able to do this much more efficiently and quickly. Safer for everyone, especially the perp. They might need more takedown training.

Jeff, how likely is it that there was no security screening at this event? I know I need to like, stop watching TV and learn about the real world, but have you been in the real world lately?

Last time I saw Kerry there were snipers on the roofs. I've been through metal detectors scores of times in the last few months. Airports, courthouse, even some schools. There are metal detectors at night clubs, man. Are you telling me that your "real world" features major political figures giving face-to-face speeches to unscreened auditoriums?

"Jeff, how likely is it that there was no security screening at this event?" Beats me. How much security screening is there at the airport and how much gets thru anyway? I wouldn't have bet my life that the deranged man was unarmed until I searched him. And your opinion of how reasonable the expectation of him being unarmed wouldn't have been factored in to my actions.

The heckler is not as hot as some terrorists that I have seen in some of the videos. 95% of them are not hot but every so often a hot one appears. I think it would be really exotic, dangerous and forbidden to do a terrorist.

Also, the guy from Damascus had a nice apartment in Chelsea which was a turn off (so typical). I was hoping for some dark basement apartment that looked like a cave in Jackson Heights-that would of been hot. I fantasized about sneaking in some back door so his family wouldn't see us because what we were going to do was forbidden.

Yeah, once he's down on the ground and begging the only way to not bet your life is to run a little current though him.

I'm done now Jeff, but since you don't seem to be understanding my argument that he was clearly unarmed (thinking it somehow hinges on the police have access to my opinion?) here it is:

The police were at the event as security. They had already screened those in attendance for weapons. They had every reason to believe he was unarmed, and from their behavior on the tape, appear to be operating under that assumption.

Michael_H said..."Is it true that police tasered Orenthal J. Simpson while he asked John Kerry a question about Sally Fields?"

Close.

J. Kerry was reciting a clever limerick he made up and thought was quite hilarious, something to do with camels, when all of a sudden Sally Fields started taking the Lord's name in vain because a 9th tier law school tried to hire, fire, and then unfire a taser at her after she tried to steal a picture of Homer J. Lo Simpson and J. Edgard Hoover surfing together, hanging ten with nail-polished toes. It was all on a loop on Fox TV until the FCC stepped in and censored it, thank G*d. Dammit!

The alternative you suggest sans cops - would be to let a preening narcissist asshole and drama queen jump the line of waiting questioners, seize the mike, and take over the event.

Since when is it the role of law enforcement to prevent people from being narcissist assholes and drama queens? I don't see cops swarm down upon Nancy Pelosi or Orrin Hatch everytime they go over their time limits.

"The police were at the event as security. They had already screened those in attendance for weapons."

Did they search the building before the event? How good was the search? How restricted was the rest of the building? How was the screening process? Body search? Metal detector? I have been thru a number of screenings for rock concerts and yet I still seem to have a bottle when I get inside.

" They had every reason to believe he was unarmed"

And this is the part you don't get. If they thought they had every reason to believe he was unarmed, then they shouldn't be cops. That will get someone killed. You do NOT know this until you do a search. A real one.

"and from their behavior on the tape, appear to be operating under that assumption."

Revenant said..."When they're doing their drama queening on someone else's property and neither abiding by the owner's rules of conduct nor leaving when asked to do so, police can and should remove them forcibly."

Ok, what really happen is Senator Kerry was interrupted in his speech praising the Badgers winning streak by Barry Manilow, who was later arrested for lewd conduct as he tried to tap the foot of Elizabeth Hasselbeck in the ladies room. Mr. Manilow received such a vicious beat down that he was basically comatose. None the less, in an action reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, campus security tasered, trussed and manacled the unfortunate Mr. Manilow to such a degree, that his lawyer, defrocked professor Erwin Chemerinsky filed a show cause motion to void the arrest as it constituted an extra legal imposition of vegetable bondage under color of authority. When the stricken singer was finally revived, it became clear that the origin of the dispute was Ms. Hassellback assertion that Mr. Manilow was the new Liberace which freaked out the man who makes the songs to such a degree that he had to be restrained. When asked for a comment, Senator Kerry said at first he was for the singer, before he was against him, but none the less, he had to agree with Ms. Hasselback, that Mr. Manilow, like his predecessor Mr. Liberace, was great on the piano, but sucked on the organ.

Examples? Look, i made the assertion, and now you want me to provide evidence? Do your homework for you? It just so happens i learned while observing LOS on the OJ thread that I am under no such obligation.

Grief. So many open wounds that simply will not ever heal. HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT MY OPEN WOUND! The guy wanted to know why Kerry didn't challenge the election results.

Throughout the incident, Kerry urged the audience to "cool down" and acknowledged that Meyer had raised an important question. As officers escorted Meyer from the auditorium into the lobby, Kerry went on to explain that he did not think there was sufficient evidence of voter suppression to justify contesting the 2004 election.

I love watching big mouths get Tased. If Tasers were more widespread society would be altogether more polite.

But these open non-healing wounds are a problem. These three threads, the one up there ↑ about Jeffery Toobin's obsession and fascination about the Bush/Gore decision, the significance which cannot be overstated, twice, and the thread down there ↓ about Barry Manilo not being able to tolerate Elizabeth Hasselbeck on the same stage, and this thread right here where Andrew Meyer takes inordinately l-o-n-g to question why Kerry didn't challenge the election results, all have a troubling commonality. MY WOUND!

"Are you telling me that your "real world" features major political figures giving face-to-face speeches to unscreened auditoriums?"

I can't vouch for that, exactly, but I can tell you that last weekend I stood within arm's reach of a very prominent (R) Senator last weekend in the crowded visitor-center lobby at Arlington National Cemetary, while folks recognized him and came up and greeted him, and we sure didn't have to go through any metal detectors to get in.